Keith Holmes of Datex Systems, the U.K. company that developed the Pics2Phones service for transferring photos from its Web site to cellular phones, confirms that Sprint PCS and other cellular operators are disabling functions that allow cellular subscribers to use photos sent to their phones.
Yesterday I posted an article in The Seattle Times that said Sprint has disabled the capability allowing cellular users to use a non-Sprint service to send photos to be used as wallpaper on the phone.
Holmes wrote a long e-mail detailing the problems experienced by Linda Knapp, who wrote The Seattle Times article and experiences with other cellular operators.
Datex's view
Here's what Holmes writes:
"We can confirm that the information in Linda Knapp's article is correct. With regard to not being able to access the downloads folder after saving content from a non Sprint source.
"Whilst the author of the article was testing Pics2Phones (which provides free WAP transfers for picture content from PC to Phone) both of the author's phones which were on the Sprint network would not allow access to the downloads folder after content was saved.
After the a lot of transatlantic support (we are in the U.K.) it was determined that the manuals for the phones (supplied by Sprint with the phones) clearly describe procedures for accessing the downloads folder and then choosing previously saved files to set as a wallpaper or background for instance.
"However, when the procedure for doing this is followed, when you get to the step where you access the downloads folder, the option is missing (to choose the downloads folder). However when the author used the premium services of the content provider, everything worked as expected.
"This disabling of features on phones is an attempt by service providers to lock users into using the premium content of the service provider who supplied the phone. This is not limited to Sprint either.
"Interestingly enough we had a support request from a Pics2Phones user who's service provider is Telus in Canada. The user was using the exact same phone model as Linda Knapp. However, this user could access the downloads folder, though their service provider had disabled the save feature.
"So if the user downloaded a picture from Pics2Phones or any other third party provider, the user could display the picture on the phone but could not save it to the downloads folder. However Linda Knapp could save the pictures but not access the downloads folder later.
"The Canadian Pics2Phones user also reported that if users received picture attachments to emails received on their phone, these too could not be saved,
"However using the providers premium content services allowed all features to work as per the manual.
"This disabling of features is not just limited to picture content, it is quite common for the saving ringtones to be denied unless it comes from the service provider.
"Another trick the service providers use is when a subscriber tries to download a picture from a third party provider to their phone, the user will receive a 'data too large' message on their phone.
"This message is displayed irrespective of the size of the image or the space available on the users mobile device. What is actually is happening is that the service provider is blocking the third party content.
"You were spot on when you say this 'denies subscribers choices they previously had'; a better description would be 'denies the choices they thought they had.'
"Until users become aware that they are being manipulated and start to complain then nothing is going to change. This problem seem to be somewhat more prevalent in the U.S. than it is in Europe....
"The fact that service providers are limiting user choice is affecting to a certain extent third party providers like ourselves from fairly competing in the market and limiting the choice of the consumer.
"Most consumers would not go and look in the manual and contest the issue with service provider, so far they are just accepting that they cannot do what they want to do."
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